The Golan Heights Distillery is the first whiskey to be bottled and sold in Israel. (Courtesy of the Golan Heights Distillery)

Pelter Winery is now distilling whiskey and other spirits. The still in the background is from Cognac, France, and once was used by Remy Martin. (Courtesy of Pelter Winery)

KATZRIN, Israel (JTA) – David Zibell is busy testing the alcohol level of the liquid flowing out of his outdoor copper still. Then, touching his head to ensure his kippah is in place, he heads inside to carefully place labels on the whiskey bottles lined up inside his distillery.

The small warehouse in an industrial zone in the Golan Heights town of Katzrin may not look like much from the outside, where his makeshift whiskey still is essentially a large metal pot connected to a blue plastic garbage pail. But Zibell – a bearded, bespectacled Canadian who made aliyah in 2014 – is the first person to bottle and sell whiskey in Israel, where it hit the market earlier this month. [Read more…]

Born in the Palestinian city of Nablus in 1961, as a teenager Masri was apprehended and jailed by Israel eight times for throwing rocks and organizing demonstrations, the first time when he was 14. During the first intifada, he served as a conduit between the uprising’s leadership and the Palestine Liberation Organization, then based in Tunisia. He later grew close with Yasser Arafat. When the late Palestinian leader touched down in Washington for the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, Masri says he was the one who opened the airplane door.

Now, after having spent much of his early life resisting the Israeli occupation, Masri stands accused of colluding with it. [Read more…]

JERUSALEM (JTA) – Alejandro Beutel bowed his yarmulke-covered head and pressed his hands and forehead into the 2,000-year-old stones of the Western Wall. After slipping a note into one of the cracks, Beutel whispered a prayer and cried.

It’s a scene that unfolds daily at the sacred site in the Old City here – except that Beutel is a convert to Islam, the son of a Jewish father and Christian mother. He was one of 11 Muslim activists who visited Israel this month as part of the Muslim Leadership Initiative (MLI), a three-year-old program that brings North American Muslims to Israel to learn about Judaism and the Jewish connection to the Holy Land. [Read more…]

TEL AVIV (JTA) – Last month, rumours flooded the Internet that former Israeli President Shimon Peres was dead. True to form, the man who tirelessly trumpets his country’s high-tech sector took to Facebook to clear the air.

“I wish to thank the citizens of Israel for the support, concern and interest, and wish to clarify that the rumours are false,” wrote Peres, a Nobel Prize winner. “I’m continuing with my daily schedule as usual to do whatever I can to assist The State of Israel and its citizens.” [Read more…]

TEL AVIV (JTA) – When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at the site of a deadly attack here the night after the shooting, his words were perceived by some as more offensive than comforting.

After expressing condolences to the families of the victims and welcoming condemnations from the Arab-Israeli community, the prime minister turned to a familiar theme. [Read more…]

Israelis lighting candles at a memorial set up outside the Tel Aviv pub where two people were shot dead on Jan. 1, 2016. (Ben Kelmer/Flash 90)

Nashat Milhem is accused of killing two people in central Tel Aviv on Friday. (Israel Police)

TEL AVIV (JTA) – Until Friday, this city had been largely untouched by the recent wave of near-daily attacks by Palestinians on Israeli civilians.

Several incidents did strike Tel Aviv – a soldier was stabbed with a screwdriver outside Israel Defense Forces headquarters in October and, the following month, two Israelis were killed in a stabbing attack at an office building. But its residents have largely been spared the stabbing and car-ramming attacks centered in Jerusalem in the West Bank.

On Friday, however, the so-called Tel Aviv bubble was definitively punctured when a gunman opened fire on Dizengoff Street, one of the busiest arteries in the city and a popular hangout for both locals and tourists. [Read more…]